


Opposite Teams

by bookworm1517



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, Avengers at Camp Half-Blood, BuckyNat Secret Santa, Capture the Flag, kind of crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 03:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9216170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm1517/pseuds/bookworm1517
Summary: Bucky and Natasha have infiltrated Camp Half-Blood on behalf of the KGB to spy on Chiron. Bucky is having second thoughts, putting Natasha in a difficult position. And then there's the last game of Capture the Flag of the summer...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PaigeTico](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaigeTico/gifts).



> This is a gift for xXFallenStarXx (sherlollipops on Tumblr) as part of the FYBuckyNat Secret Santa. Based on the prompt: Bucky and Natasha are demigods sent to infiltrate Camp Half-Blood and spy on Chiron.
> 
> Hope you like it!

A gentle shift in the shadows around him was all that alerted Bucky to her presence. He turned from the sunset over the lake stretching before him and watched her step out of the trees. She could have been a nymph with her angular face, piercing green eyes, and flaming hair. His lips quirked into a smile.

“Watch out for the harpies,” Natasha said with an answering smile.

Bucky smirked, “I can handle them.”

“I’m sure.”

They stood beside each other in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the crisp breeze and the changing leaves. Autumn was threatening as summer faded.

“Capture the Flag later,” Bucky said, making small talk.

“Rumor has it they’re putting you and Rogers in charge of the team.”

“And you are?”

Natasha shrugged, “With Stark to oppose you.”

Bucky sighed softly, hoping she didn’t notice. It wouldn’t do for her to notice how much he missed fighting alongside her. But of course she did. The pair of them had trained together for almost ten years in Russia. As cliché as it was, she knew him better than he knew himself.

“You’ve gotten close with Rogers,” she commented too nonchalantly.

He stiffened, “Where are you going with this?”

“Be careful, James, don’t forget where you come from.” Natasha snapped her mouth shut, realizing she’d said the wrong thing.

He snorted. “I came from Brooklyn and a life with a family and friends. Steve was one of those friends! They took everything…”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did.” His voice lashed like a whip against her.

Natasha looked down and bit her lip. When she spoke, it was so low that it was almost inaudible. “They’ll kill you.”

He didn’t say anything.

“They’ll send me to kill you.” She furiously brushed away the single tear that escaped.

Bucky finally turned to look at her again. “Nat—Natalia, no. It won’t come to that. You can always stay here with me.”

Natasha snorted, “There’s no way they would let us both walk away, even if I wanted to.”

“We can handle whatever they throw at us.” Bucky stepped forward and put his arms around Natasha. She stiffened at the contact.

“I can’t.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, praying to a god he didn’t believe in to spare the pair any further pain.

“We could stay here, come clean to everyone, they’d let us stay,” he pleaded.

Natasha stepped away from him, coldness stealing across her face, eyes flashing like ice. “That’s treason.”

He shoved down the rising anger, but his words still had more bite than he wanted. “I’m not Russian.”

Natasha let out a low hiss. “Stop. Stop before you make it worse.”

“Make what worse?” Bucky was practically shouting in desperation. He was so tired of the lying and sneaking around. All he wanted was a chance to be normal (or at least as normal as a child of Hades could be): to be happily in love with the girl in front of him, to hang out with his best friend, to have friends…

Natasha’s lips thinned, the corners whitening in consternation.

“All the KGB has ever done is take and take from us,” he said. “Why is it so bad that I want a way out?!”

“We have our orders,” Natasha snapped.

He could see the shadow of fear in her eyes—fear for him. “Orders? Natalia, they have beaten, raped, and tortured both of us, we owe them nothing!”

She flinched at his words before squaring her shoulders. “Vernost’ partii—Vernost’  Rodine.” _(“Loyalty to the party—Loyalty to the motherland.”)_

His bitter laugh echoed in the silence. “Ne protsitirovat’ ikh verundy propaganu mne.” _(Don’t quote their bullshit propaganda at me._ _”)_

“We have a job to do.” Her voice left no room for argument. With a final glare, Natasha turned and stalked back through the trees.

“Fuck,” Bucky said, watching her slink through the lengthening shadows. He ran his hand through his hair, clenching the fist on his metal arm until it creaked. That wasn’t how he’d wanted things to go between them.

It was the first time in six weeks since they had both gotten a chance to meet in private beyond a few whispered words in passing. The few moments they had that afternoon were supposed to be spent with her in his arms, not arguing. Sure, they interacted during the day, but it was always in front of people. They were always acting. Bucky hated it. The entire mission rubbed him the wrong way, especially since they didn’t know what was happening with the information they provided.

Spying on Chiron felt wrong. The centaur had taken both of them in, provided them with training and food and been far kinder than their KGB handler’s had ever been. The fact that Steve was here, that he’d found friends, that Natasha was safe made the prospect of staying even more enticing.

He turned and headed down towards the lake, watching as campers scattered around cabins, all moving towards the forest. Halfway there, he found himself confronted by his childhood best friend.

“Hey, Buck!” Steve called, hurrying up to him. He had grown significantly in the ten years since they’d been separated. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Bucky gave him a sheepish smile, trying to erase the worry from his expression.

Fortunately, Steve wasn’t paying close attention. “They announced Capture the Flag teams: you and I are leading blue against Tony and Natasha.”

He didn’t have to pretend when he rolled his eyes. “Great. We’re screwed.”

Steve shook his head, “Nah, they gave us the Ares cabin.”

“Against Natasha—brilliant tactician, master of distraction, and child of Athena—and Tony the genius with no self-preservation who is a child of Hephaestus?” Bucky snorted. “Not to mention that means we’ve got the Athena cabin helping the children of Hephaestus booby trap the forest. We’re well and truly fucked.”

Steve looked momentarily shaken before he grinned again. “So what? The only heavy hitters they’ve got are Rhodes and Vision. We can take ‘em. We’ve got you, me, Clint, Wanda, Scott, and Sam. Easy.”

“I wish I had your naïve optimism.”

Steve led the way to the armory so they could pick up their weapons. “What are you worried about? Natasha will go easy on you. She likes you.”

The words and tone were teasing, yet all they did was send dread curling in Bucky’s stomach. Steve didn’t know the half of it. Natasha didn’t like him much at the moment, and he was certain she wouldn’t go easy on him. If she came after him—on orders or not—would he have the strength to fight her off? Somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain, Bucky knew that would be a fight to the death. He didn’t think it would be a fight he’d survive.

* * *

Natasha glanced around once more to make sure she was alone. She picked up the water bottle she’d rigged and gave it a gentle squeeze. A fine mist sprayed up, catching the light and sending faint rainbows dancing through the air in front of her. She pulled a golden drachma out of her pocket and tossed it into the mist. “Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering.”

The rainbow bloomed and quickly shifted to show the face of one Ivan Petrovitch. The man Natasha dreaded reporting to.

“Natasha.” His lips curled into a cruel approximation of a smile when he saw her.

“Sir,” she said.

“Report.”

She nodded once and began speaking quickly. “I don’t have much time before the game starts. Chiron has stayed close to camp this week. He’s been watching everyone train and meeting with the counselors one on one.”

“So he met with Barnes?” Ivan interrupted.

“Yes, sir. He hasn’t had a chance to update me on the details.” The lie slipped off her tongue easily.

Ivan frowned. “Barnes has not reported to us in almost a month.”

“He’s been kept busy training. I hardly see him,” Natasha found herself trying to come up with some excuse, something to keep Ivan from suspecting.

He held up his hand, cutting her off. “There was some concern when we sent Barnes on this mission that his loyalty might prove… untenable. Tell me the truth Natasha, has Barnes been compromised?”

Natasha cursed herself for her slight hesitation. She knew it hadn’t escaped Ivan’s notice from the way his face morphed to an expression of disappointment.

“Your orders are to continue your mission,” he commanded. “Watch Chiron and report his movements to us. Do not concern yourself with Barnes. We will handle his disloyalty.”

Natasha could only nod as her throat closed up. She knew there was no arguing with Ivan over this, and feared that any attempt to do so would result in her being ordered to kill him. It wasn’t something she thought she could handle.

The Iris message faded away. She kicked aside the bottle she’d placed on the ground and clenched her fists. Her breath escaped in harsh pants.

A horn sounded in the distance, calling the campers to positions. The game would start soon.

Natasha pushed down her anger and fear until she was calm. She had to focus on winning the game, nothing else.

* * *

The game of Capture the Flag was dragging on into its second hour. Natasha wiped sweat from her forehead and stepped over to Tony. “You got any ideas of how to end this?”

The monsters had joined in when the sun went down, making the game even more treacherous. The additional pressure of it being the last game of the summer meant the campers were even more vicious than normal.

“Who do we have left?” Tony responded.

Natasha shrugged and pulled up the tracking software the Athena cabin had developed for the game. “Looks like the two of us, Rhodes, Vision, T’Challa, and that kid Peter. Against Barnes, Rogers, Barton, Wanda, and Scott.”

“At least it’s even numbers,” Tony said.

“We need to end this soon. The monsters out here have woken up and are hunting both sides indiscriminately.” She didn’t mention that she’d watched Bucky get ambushed again and again by monsters, far more often than anyone else in the field. She couldn’t help but wonder what Ivan had offered to get them to help him…

Tony peered over her shoulder to look at the schematic. “They’re all bunched up near their flag. Let’s go straight to them, end this one on one.”

“You’re sure you want to leave our flag unguarded?”

He shrugged, “We don’t have the manpower to launch another assault unless we leave it unattended. The good news is, they have the same scenario, but they don’t know where we are.”

The other members of their team came loping up to them.

“Okay,” Natasha said. “Here’s the plan.”

Tony led the way through the trees, his armor glowing faintly in the darkness. Natasha kept pace, half a step behind him. Rhodes and Vision had both gotten airborne and were providing some air support. Peter and T’Challa kept to the back, the two wild cards on the team.

“Rogers,” Tony called when they stepped out of the trees, surprising the huddled group.

Steve’s head whipped up, mouth dropping slightly in surprise. Bucky tensed, ready for a fight. The others looked surprised but quickly drew their weapons and formed up around the flag.

Natasha didn’t catch what Steve said, but a moment later Sam and Bucky both took off running away from them. The blue flag fluttered halfheartedly behind Steve and the remaining members of his team.

“Surrender and we won’t hurt you,” Tony told them.

Natasha fought not to roll her eyes, mind racing to figure out where Barnes and Wilson were headed.

Steve snorted, “Come on, Tony. You know that’s not how the game works. You’ve still got to get the flag and you can count on the fact that we are going to fight you every step of the way.”

“Well, you are outnumbered now.” Tony nodded once and the team charged forward. Rhodey and Vision plummeted through the trees, drawing Wanda’s attention. She threw her hands up and sent a wave of red towards them. The pair fell towards the ground.

Tony engaged both Scott and Steve, darting in between them as Scott shrank and ran up his arm.

Natasha jumped into the fray, sliding under the arrow Barton sent flying at her. They had become fast friends over the summer and the smirk playing on the corner of his mouth showed just how amusing he found their fighting.

The pair grappled together for a minute before he succeeded in pushing her to the ground, pinning her with his bow. Natasha couldn’t help herself: “We’re still friends, right?”

Clint grinned, “Depends how hard you hit me.”

She threw her leg around him, rolling with the momentum and knocking him aside. A few sharp kicks had him retreating, bow whirling like a staff. They were in too close of quarters for his arrows to be successful. Natasha let out a grunt as she found herself thrown the side and hitting a tree. She laid on the ground for a long minute trying to catch her breath as her brain caught up with the fight.

Wanda had thrown her away from Clint. That brat. She shoved herself laboriously to her feet, taking stock of her injuries. Her ribs ached, but nothing seemed broken. Her back would be a mess of black and blue bruises in the morning. Surveying the fight, Natasha frowned. Steve and his teammates were starting to give ground before the onslaught. Peter had challenged Steve as was almost keeping him down. It wasn’t a significant change in positions yet, but it would be soon. So where were Barnes and Wilson?

“Fuck,” she muttered, taking off around the edge of the fight. They were doing the one thing that might cost her team the game—going after the flag.

Natasha’s path through the trees was more circuitous that she liked. The monsters were out in full force and required many detours to avoid risking death or injury. Twice, she found herself engaged in battle: once against a Myrmeke and then against an enraged hellhound. Both engagements left her with fresh scratches and bruises.

Up ahead, she could see the telltale flash of red through the trees and the sound of fighting. She picked up her pace, knowing that she didn’t have long.

Natasha burst into the clearing holding their flag and froze. Bucky was standing protectively over Wilson with a glistening sword in his right hand, metal left arm visible through the shredded sleeve of his shirt. He was ringed by a dozen monsters. A thin layer of dust coated the ground. She didn’t know how many monsters they’d taken out before her arrival.

Bucky turned his head just enough to catch a glimpse of her. His eyes darkened.

“You reported me?” his voice was even, not betraying the anger she could practically feel coming off him in waves.

Natasha shook her head, trying to find the words as tears of anger and pain welled up.

“You couldn’t do it yourself?” he snapped. “Is that it?”

“James,” Natasha whispered finally. “I didn’t—”

“You didn’t what?”

A harpy charged forward, distracting Bucky for a few seconds. She turned to dust as his blade flashed through her. But there was no more respite, the other monsters closed in. Blood soon stained his shirt, turning the bright orange a nasty shade of brown.

Natasha found herself frozen. She’d been ordered not to interfere, told to continue her mission and ignore Barnes. She didn’t think she could do it.

The Myrmeke knocked the sword out of Bucky’s hand and sent him rolling away from the poison spray. The other three monsters followed. Natasha darted forward and dragged Wilson’s body away from the fray and pressed her fingers to his neck. She released a sigh of relief when she felt a pulse. It was faint, but definitely there. She gave him a cursory glance, saw no bleeding injuries, and turned back to Bucky.

He’d managed to dispatch the last harpy but was still contending with the Myrmeke, a hellhound, and two Furies. Natasha flinched as he fell to the ground, arm raised to block another spray of poison. His skin smoked where it landed.

Natasha let out a yell and sent a knife flying through the eye of one of the Furies. The creature shrieked and fell to the ground, vanishing into a puff of dust.

The hellhound swatted a Bucky, sending him sprawling. Natasha could see blood seeping from his side through a jagged cut in his shirt. His lips moved, voice too low for her to hear. She had to count on the fact that he could handle the hellhound.

The remaining Fury and Myrmeke turned their attention to Natasha and she darted forward, rolling to grab the sword Bucky had dropped. She popped up and slashed at the Fury as it dived towards her. It retreated into the air again, out of her reach.

The Myrmeke charged. Natasha started running towards it, throwing herself into a slide a second before collision. She lifted the sword above her and dug it into the Myrmeke’s underbelly. Her momentum propelled sent her skidding out from under the monster, a deep gash oozing yellow goo in the Myrmeke’s belly. It let out a harsh shriek and collapsed, disintegrating a minute later.

Natasha didn’t even have time to get to her feet before the Fury was swooping again. She swung wildly with her sword, landing a couple of glancing blows before the creature grabbed hold of her hair and yanked. Natasha’s eyes watered at the sharp pain. She yanked away, wincing as she felt her hair pull away from her scalp. Before the Fury could recover from her sudden escape, Natasha spun and decapitated it.

Her arms fell and she panted. But her recovery was interrupted by a grunt from behind her. Bucky was still fending off the hellhound. The creature hadn’t noticed the demise of the Fury and continued to focus on Bucky.

Natasha charged it with a yell, impaling it in the chest. The hellhound fell to the ground, whimpering pitifully. Natasha gave it no more than a glance to check it would stay down before she rushed to Bucky’s side. He collapsed against her, blood pumping freely from his side.

“Talia,” he whispered, vibrant blue eyes locking onto hers.

“Shh,” she said. “Save your strength. We have to get you back to camp.”

“’M fine,” he said, trying to push himself to his feet.

Natasha found herself smiling half in relief at his stubbornness. “No, you aren’t. You idiot!”

Sam jerked into consciousness with a startled yell, jumping to his feet and looking around in panic. “Did we win?”

Natasha just shook her head and looked at Bucky.

“No idea, man,” Bucky said. “Was a bit busy with the shit ton of monsters that came after me.”

“Yeah, what was up with that?” Sam asked. He appraised the pair in front of him.

“Tell you later.”

“Can you go find some help?” Natasha asked pointedly. “We need to get back to camp.”

“Right,” Sam said slowly. He nodded once at Bucky and headed into the trees, disappearing within seconds.

Bucky gave Natasha a tired smile. “Thanks for saving me.”

She looked away before turning to meet his steady gaze. She leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly against his in a desperate kiss. Bucky’s metal hand cupped the back of her neck for a moment before she pulled away.

“Come on,” she said. “You need some ambrosia and then you get to tell Chiron everything.”

“Does that mean you’re staying?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, “Let’s go. You should know you’re stuck with me now.”


End file.
